Movies & TV

No rapper before Christopher Wallace matched his effortless storytelling and his knack for making rough talk sound smooth. On Biggie’s first two solo albums, 1994’s Ready to Die and 1997’s Life After Death, he made crafting party-starting club anthems like “Juicy,” “Hyponitze,” and “Mo Money Mo Problems” seem effortless. Tupac Shakur, on the other hand, didn’t need a microphone to be a star. Whether it was writing an ode to his mother, facing down the cops, or taking a bullet, ‘Pac created a seductive mystique. That’s why the ripples of their untimely deaths (Tupac at age 25 on September 13, 1996, and Biggie was only 24 when he was shot an dkilled on March 9, 1997) continue to shape the music and the culture. And that makes us miss them all the more.